[9][10] Next up were Chelsea, fellow members of the Big Four who had parted company with manager José Mourinho only two days earlier, following a run of poor form, appointing his assistant Avram Grant in his place.

United's ten-game unbeaten streak in the league came to an end when they travelled to the Reebok Stadium to play Bolton Wanderers, who beat them 1–0 with an early Nicolas Anelka goal.

With Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick unavailable due to a viral infection, Carlos Tevez was given the opportunity to start the game on his return to his old club, West Ham United, on 29 December.

[13] Following their exit from the FA Cup the previous weekend, a trip to Pride Park to play bottom-placed Derby County on 15 March looked to be the perfect opportunity for the Red Devils to bounce back and show their title credentials.

United goalkeeper Ben Foster, making his debut due to the unavailability of Van der Sar and Tomasz Kuszczak, then staked his claim to the number 1 jersey with a pair of fine saves from Derby striker Kenny Miller.

Cristiano Ronaldo proved to be the thorn in Derby's side on a number of occasions, testing former Manchester United goalkeeper Roy Carroll with a curling effort hit with the outside of his foot and a 40-yard free kick.

With Arsenal only managing a draw against ten-man Middlesbrough in the day's late kick-off, United's win put them on top of the table on goal difference with a game in hand.

Man Utd started the game at their usual fast pace, and it took just nine minutes for Cristiano Ronaldo, the team's captain for the day, to find the back of the net after Carlos Tevez's poorly hit bicycle kick was saved.

After robbing Steven Gerrard of the ball two-thirds of the way up the field, Wes Brown continued his run into the Liverpool box, and found himself on the end of Wayne Rooney's cross, heading past a less than confident Reina.

Man Utd's game against Aston Villa was the late kick-off on 29 March, which allowed Arsenal to pull back United's lead in the league to just three points with a 3–2 win over Bolton.

It was Piqué's fellow substitute, Park Ji-sung, who fashioned the equaliser, though, as he checked back inside Andrew Taylor before squaring the ball to Wayne Rooney, whose deflected shot found its way past Mark Schwarzer in the Middlesbrough goal.

Indeed, they created the best chances of the half, United's best opportunity falling to Wayne Rooney, who refused to go down under the challenge of Kolo Touré, before seeing his shot saved by the foot of Jens Lehmann in a one-on-one situation.

Chelsea, now the only team with a realistic chance of stopping United winning the title failed to reduce the lead to three points the following day, only managing a 1–1 draw at home to Wigan Athletic.

Finally, with just two minutes left in normal time, Carlos Tevez headed home from Paul Scholes' flick-on to salvage a crucial point for United in the championship race.

Just before half-time, as West Ham were looking to be settling into a rhythm, an altercation between Lucas Neill and Nani resulted in the Portuguese international headbutting the Australian, before going to ground himself, only to find a red card waiting for him when he got back to his feet.

Manchester United went to Wigan on the final day of the season, knowing that they needed only to equal or better Chelsea's result against Bolton in order to be Premier League champions, due to their superior goal difference.

Paul Scholes was booked early on for a tackle from behind on Wilson Palacios, but the Latics then had a penalty shout turned down in the 24th minute, when a Jason Koumas shot appeared to deflect off Rio Ferdinand's outstretched upper arm.

A last-minute equaliser by Bolton against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge ensured that United's championship did not have to be decided by goal difference, and it left the Red Devils as the champions of England for the 17th time, just one short of Liverpool's record of 18 titles.

United continued to produce the better of the chances in the first half – Portsmouth's best effort was a swerving 25-yarder from Pedro Mendes that tested Van der Sar to the extent that the Dutch keeper injured himself and had to be substituted at half-time.

Michael Carrick rounded the goalkeeper only to be tackled on the line by Distin, whilst Patrice Evra had a shot turned onto the post by David James before things went from bad to worse for the Manchester side.

United were drawn into a group with Sporting CP, the previous club of Cristiano Ronaldo and new signing Nani, Dynamo Kyiv, and Roma, who suffered a huge 7–1 loss to the Red Devils in the 2006–07 season.

United's winning streak in Europe continued when they won their match against Dynamo Kyiv 4–2 in Ukraine, with goals coming from Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo (2).

Ryan Giggs started the match on the bench, which meant that Rio Ferdinand was handed the captaincy and Park Ji-sung was given his first Champions League appearance of the season, while Michael Carrick was able to take his position in the midfield three despite having missed the team's training session the day before.

On the hour mark, in response to a header on goal by Mirko Vučinić that brought about a world class save from Edwin van der Sar, Alex Ferguson called for his team to adopt a more conservative formation, bringing on Owen Hargreaves to replace Anderson.

United seemed more comfortable playing in a 4–4–2 formation, and the change paid immediate dividends, as Rooney pounced on Doni's mishandling of Park's header to poke the ball home for 2–0.

However, on the half-hour, the referee Tom Henning Øvrebø awarded the visiting side a penalty for a trip on Mancini by Wes Brown, which Daniele De Rossi stepped up to take.

The day was made complete in the 81st minute, when Alex Ferguson brought Anderson off to be replaced by Gary Neville, who immediately took over the captaincy, albeit in central midfield, rather than his preferred right-back slot.

Márquez was shown a yellow card for his trouble, which meant he was ineligible for the second leg on 29 April, but Ronaldo saw his resulting free kick go just a yard wide of the far post.

Despite surrendering huge swathes of possession to Barcelona, United nearly extended their lead shortly before half time, Nani heading wide from a good cross from Park Ji-sung.

On the same day that Anderson and Nani arrived, Polish goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak came in from West Bromwich Albion, having already spent the previous season with Manchester United on loan.